Matt Adams

Let me start with the problems. Matt Adam’s footwork around first base is atrocious. Transitioning from the base when he’s holding the runner to a fielding position when the pitcher delivers to the plate is a challenge for Adams and he gets about 3 feet away from the base during that process. It leaves a huge gap on the right side of the infield.  He had to field a pop-up in the 6th inning of Sunday’s game and, while there was some wind, it was a bit of an adventure despite being well within range of first base.  He needs to do about a dozen side-step drills as lateral movement without turning seems to be unnatural.  He’s just not going to get to much at first base as a defender though he looked fine receiving throws.

The good news is that his swing is pretty great. He keeps his hands loaded well and uses a minimalist stride.  It’s a nice left handed swing that doesn’t have too much uppercut in it. Adams hit a 400′ homerun in the first inning of Saturday’s game to CF and on Sunday hit a sharp double just inside the left field foul line.  He obviously has power in his bat and the power will play up.  I worry a little bit about his pitch selection as he was swinging at a lot of pitches — not all of which were strikes — though I don’t have any notes of him looking a true fool on a breaking ball or change.  I think the bat is for real but I could see teams finding a weakness in his plate coverage and exploiting it. I’m not sure Adams has the discipline to prevent that.  He’s got a real shot at the majors but he’s not a perfect prospect.

Ryan Jackson

Ryan Jackson is something of the reverse of Adams. The questions for Jackson mostly revolve around his swing and his offense.  He is very, very busy at the plate. The bat is rocking back and forth before he gets it into a mostly upright, cocked position. More problematic, in my opinion, is the high leg kick where he actually rocks back on his right leg before stepping forward.  It doesn’t commit him to the pitch but it seems like he’d have a hard time adjusting to breaking balls from that position — he’s left to flail with his upper half at breaking pitches away.

With the high kick, he also has some head movement that makes me concerned about his ability to pick up on advanced breaking balls though his walk rate has been good thus far in the minors.  I’d like to see a quieter swing and a leg kick that doesn’t have him physically shifting his center of gravity backwards.

Defensively, Jackson (right) is just incredible to watch. He fits the classic description of “soft hands”, is fundamentally sound with his footwork/ mechanics and has a strong arm. His range is better than average though not on the same level of Brendan Ryan.  Jackson gets a good first step and has impeccable instinct. The highlight of the weekend was diving play to his right during Saturday’s game at the edge of the outfield grass.  He doesn’t need to hit much to be an average shortstop overall given his defense.

Tommy Pham

I’m not really sure what to make of Pham at this point in his career. He’s age appropriate for AA but he didn’t look spectacular at the plate this weekend. (In fairness, he looked much better when I saw him in Springfield last year.) His tools have long been his selling point but he’s approaching the age/level where he simply has to produce more. Pham looks sound at the plate with a quiet line drive oriented swing.  I just happened to catch him on a weekend when he went a rather unimpressive 2-for-9 at the plate.

In the outfield, he looked good as usual. He covers plenty of ground and has a plus arm throwing some real bullets back to the infield.   He started out Saturday’s game with a jumping catch at the wall to rob Angels’ #1 prospect Mike Trout of a near homerun or a double (hard to tell if it was over).  I still left with a positive overall impression of Pham but it wasn’t a standout weekend for him.

Nick Additon

The first thing to note about Additon is his mechanics particularly with the lower half of his body.  It’s immediately apparent when watching him that his step towards the plate contains what is almost a hop. He really pushes forward with his back leg and doesn’t land with a fully extended lead leg. I would think that he’s losing velocity because of the mechanics. Without a stable base, it would seem hard to get the full torque rotation through this mid-section.

Additon never broached 90mph on a questionable stadium gun (local scribe Kary Booher has commented that it is running hot lately) but Additon almost certainly wasn’t throwing gas.  His flyouts turned into line drives around the 5th inning and he was not fooling hitters with his stuff though he did work in the strikezone consistently.  I remain surprised by his modicum of success given what I saw on Sunday.

Other Notes:

• Kevin Thomas was initially displaced by Maikel Cleto’s promotion to the Springfield rotation.  He’s not long for the rotation as a right handed version of Nick Additon.
• Alex Castellanos got hit by a pitch in his second at bat of Saturday’s game and had to come out for a pinch runner.
• Jackson’s HR on on Saturday was 320′ squeaker that just got over the LF fence.
• Nick Derba managed a 340′ HR on Saturday.
• Niko Vasquez’ hit a nice 375′ HR on Sunday.
• Alan Ahmady is generously listed at 5’11″. He had a rough weekend defensively with bad misplays in the 4th inning of Saturday’s game and the 5th inning of Sunday’s game. He moves well in LF and has at least an average arm but his decision making in the outfield needs some work.
• None of the Springfield relievers made a lasting impression on me. I wasn’t in a position to verify radar readings for any of them but I don’t expect any of them to have extended MLB careers.
• Mike Trout, the #1 prospect in baseball right now, is a bit unassuming at first. The key physical difference between him and other players was the breadth of his shoulders and the size of his forearms. He’s quick in the outfield, which left me questioning the whole weekend whether they were lazy flyballs or if he’s just THAT fast, and can really run the bases quickly.  He didn’t do anything that screamed “#1 prospect” over the weekend but he’s obviously gifted physically.

Tomorrow it will have been seven years to the day that Bud Smith became the 18th rookie to throw a no-hitter in the major leagues. Once a hot prospect, the story of Bud is a sad and cautionary tale.

Bud was drafted out of high school in the 9th round by the Tigers in 1997. I don’t know if the Tigers drafted him with the intent of him hitting or pitching, because he actually had an accomplished hitting career at St. John Bosco High in Bellflower, CA. Believe it or not, he broke some of Nomar Garciaparra’s old batting records. Rather then signing with Detroit, he attended Los Angeles Harbor Community College where he was used strictly as a pitcher, and he reentered the draft in 1998.

The Cardinals drafted him in the 4th round. He made a so-so pro debut for rookie level Johnson City as an 18 year old. He threw 64 innings, allowed 85 hits and posted a 65/34 K/BB ratio with 9 homers allowed. (4.59 FIP). If he were currently in the system having just come out of the draft, we’d probably be classifying him as a sleeper but not as a prospect quite yet.

In ’99 Bud started his season at low A Peoria. He threw 54 innings and allowed 17 ER on 53 hits with a 59/16 K/BB ratio to earn a mid-season promotion. He pressed on at advanced A Potomac, throwing an effective 103.1 innings in which he allowed 34 earned runs, 91 hits, and had a 93/32 K/BB ratio. If Bud were a prospect in our system now with those numbers, I think here at FR he’d be something of an unsung prospect. You just don’t see many teenagers dominate two levels of A ball, but somehow, he missed Baseball America’s top ten. Seriously, how were Luis Saturria, Luther Hackman and Chris Haas end up being ranked ahead of Smith? Maybe it was because Smith is short and didn’t throw all that hard?

As a 20 year old he began his season in AA Arkansas. He started 18 games, posted a 12-1 record with a 2.32 ERA and threw three complete games, two of which were seven inning no-hitters. He allowed 93 hits in 108.2 innings with a 8.45 K/9 rate and a sterling 2.67 FIP. He was promoted to AAA Memphis, where he continued to pitch well, posting a 2.15 ERA and a 1.01 WHIP. If there was a cause for any concern his K/9 rate dropped to 5.63. His FIP in AAA was 3.73.

Smith won a bevvy of awards for his terrific season: He was named to the Baseball America First Team Minor League All-Star SP, St. Louis Cardinals Minor League Player of the Year, Texas League Pitcher of the Year, Texas League All-Star, Double-A All-Star SP and AA Player of the Year. Baseball America ranked him the Cardinals #1 prospect, ahead of a fella by the name of Pujols. BA ranked him the 39th best prospect overall in the minors.

While Albert broke camp with the big club, Bud started the season back in AAA as a 21 year old. He ended up splitting time between Memphis and St. Louis. He allowed 114 hits in 108 innings for Memphis with a 78/28 K/BB ratio and was named a PCL All-Star. As a Cardinal, he threw 84.2 innings, allowed 79 hits with a 59/24 K/BB ratio. He finished 4th in the NL rookie of the year voting. That Pujols guy had the nerve to take home those honors.

The highlight of his season of course was the no hitter, which was historic as well as a little controversial. It took him a whopping 134 pitches finish the game, and much has been made about his pitch count and whether it led to his labrum tear later on.  Bud only started 14 games in the majors and yet had the 41st highest PAP score (pitcher abuse points), the 11th highest maximum PAP in a single start, and the 14th highest average PAP.

He also could have been a victim of jumps in the amount of innings he threw from one season to the next. He went from 64 to throwing 160 the next two seasons, and then 190 combined between AAA and the majors during his rookie season. That also could be the source of his woes. Perhaps he could have done more to avoid that type of an injury through various exercises in the off-season, especially considering he already had less than an ideal body for a pitcher.

Anyway, the rest is history: The following season Smith was ineffective in the big leagues, but was sharp in six AAA starts. Jocketty was able to spin Smith as the key prospect in the trade for Scott Rolen, and Bud never threw an inning above AAA again.  I have to wonder…did Jocketty suspect that Bud was damaged goods? I would like to think not, but he has never been a trading partner with the Phils or Ed Wade since. Perhaps the Mulder deal was some sort of karmic retribution against Walt.

Smith last professional season was spent throwing 25 innings for an independent league team in Long Beach.  While it is a sad tale of a shooting star that disappeared into the night all too quickly, there’s a small population of men that can say they threw a no-hitter in major league baseball, let alone that they made the big leagues. I would not pity myself, not if I were him.

Smith threw an 86-89 MPH fastball and had an above average change-up and curve. While his fastball was rated as below average, his secondary stuff was solid and Smith was praised for his “pitchability” and poise more than anything else. He achieved results with impeccable control of his fastball which he used to set up his diving, deceptive change. He could throw his curveball for strikes and could throw it in any count. Bud’s weakness at times he relied too much on getting hitters to chase.  Once big league batters learned to lay off pitches a couple of inches off the plate, he struggled.

For a current player, there’s no perfect comparison to Bud in the system right now, but Nick Additon is the closest facsimile. Additon has achieved some pretty outstanding results-117 K to 37 BB in 133.2 innings pitched and opponents are hitting only .211 against him over two levels-despite not having power stuff. Both are strike-throwing, fastball/curve/change lefty finessers, but Additon throws even slower then Smith. I guess that makes Additon “Bud Light.” We shall see if he can succeed above A ball.

(Ed. Note: I leaned on a few sources for their thoughts and memories of Bud. Thanks to those of you I asked, you know who you are.)